Field of the Disclosure
Embodiments disclosed herein generally relate to methods and apparatuses to at least partially grip a tubular member. More specifically, embodiments disclosed herein relate to an apparatus that is used to adjustably grip and support tubular members of varying size as the tubular members are installed to or removed from a downhole well location.
Description of the Related Art
In oilfield exploration and production operations, various oilfield tubular members are used to perform important tasks, including, but not limited to, drilling the wellbore and casing a drilled wellbore. For example, a long assembly of drill pipes, known in the industry as a drill string, may be used to rotate a drill bit at a distal end to create the wellbore. Furthermore, after a wellbore has been created, a casing string may be disposed downhole into the wellbore and cemented in place to stabilize, reinforce, or isolate (among other functions) portions of the wellbore. As such, strings of drill pipe and casing may be connected together, such as end-to-end by threaded connections, in which a female “pin” member of a first tubular member is configured to threadably engage a corresponding male “box” member of a second tubular member. Alternatively, a casing string may be made-up of a series of male-male ended casing joints coupled together by female-female couplers. The process by which the threaded connections are assembled is called “making-up” a threaded connection, and the process by which the connections are disassembled is referred to “breaking-out” the threaded connection. As would be understood by one having ordinary skill, individual pieces (or “joints”) of oilfield tubular members may come in a variety of weights, diameters, configurations, and lengths.
Referring to FIG. 1, a perspective view is shown of one embodiment of a drilling rig 101 used to run one or more tubular members 111 (e.g., casing, drill pipe, etc.) downhole into a wellbore. As shown, the drilling rig 101 includes a frame structure known as a “derrick” 102, from which a traveling block 103 (which may include a top drive) suspends a lifting apparatus 105 (e.g., an elevator or a tubular (e.g., casing) running tool connected to the quill of a top drive) and a gripping apparatus 107 (e.g., slip assembly or “spider”) at the rig floor may be used to manipulate (e.g., raise, lower, rotate, hold, etc.) a tubular member 111. The traveling block 103 is a device that is suspended from at or near the top of the derrick 102, in which the traveling block 103 may move up-and-down (i.e., vertically as depicted) to raise and/or lower the tubular member 111. The traveling block 103 may be a simple “pulley-style” block and may have a hook from which objects below (e.g., lifting apparatus 105 and/or top drive) may be suspended. Drilling rig 101 can be a land or offshore rig (e.g., drill ship) without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.
Additionally, the lifting apparatus 105 may be coupled below the traveling block 103 (and/or a top drive if present) to selectively grab or release a tubular member 111 as the tubular member 111 is to be raised and/or lowered within and from the derrick 102. As such, the top drive may include one or more guiding rails and/or a track disposed adjacent to the top drive, in which the guiding rails or track may be used to support and guide the top drive as the top drive is raised and/or lowered within the derrick. An example of a top drive is disclosed within U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,596, filed on Aug. 3, 1982, and entitled “Drilling of Wells with Top Drive Unit,” which is incorporated herein by reference.
Typically, a lifting apparatus 105 includes movable gripping members (e.g., slip assemblies) attached thereto and movable between a retracted (e.g., disengaged) position and an engaged position. In the engaged position, the lifting apparatus 105 supports the tubular member 111 such the tubular member 111 may be lifted and/or lowered, and rotated if so equipped, e.g., by using a lifting apparatus that is a tubular (e.g., casing) running tool connected to the quill of the top drive. In the retracted position, the lifting apparatus 105 may release the tubular member 111 and move away therefrom to allow the tubular member 111 to be engaged with or removed from the lifting apparatus 105 and/or the gripping apparatus 107. For example, the lifting apparatus 105 may release the tubular member 111 after the tubular member 111 is threadably connected to a tubular string 115 supported by the gripping apparatus 107 (e.g., slip assembly or “spider”) at the rig floor at the floor of the drilling rig 101.
Further, in an embodiment in which the drilling rig 101 includes a top drive and a tubular running tool, the tubular member 111 may be supported and gripped by the tubular running tool connected to the quill of the top drive. For example, the tubular running tool may include one or more gripping members that may move radially inward and/or radially outward. In such embodiments, these gripping members of a tubular running tool may move radially outward to grip an internal surface of the tubular member 111, such as with an internal gripping device and/or the gripping members of the tubular running tool may move radially inward to grip an external surface of the tubular member 111, such as with an external gripping device, however so equipped.
As such, the gripping apparatus 107 of the drilling rig 101 may be used to support and suspend the tubular string 115, e.g., by gripping, from the drilling rig 101, e.g., supported by the rig floor 109 or by a rotary table thereof. The gripping apparatus 107 may be disposed within the rig floor 109, such as flush with the rig floor 109, or may extend above the rig floor 109, as shown. As such, the gripping apparatus 107 may be used to suspend the tubular string 115, e.g., while one or more tubular members 111 are connected or disconnected from the tubular string 115.
The illustrated gripping device 201 includes a bowl 203 with a plurality of slip assemblies 205 movably disposed therein. Specifically, the slip assemblies 205 may be connected to a ring 207, in which the ring 207 may be connected to the bowl 203 through an actuator (e.g., actuator rods) 209. Actuator may be actuated, such as electrically actuated and/or fluidly (e.g., hydraulically) actuated, to move up and/or down with respect to the bowl 203, in which the slip assemblies 205 connected to the ring 207 may correspondingly move up and/or down with respect to the bowl 203.
The illustrated slip assemblies 205 are designed to engage and contact the inner tapered surface of the bowl 203 when moving with respect to the bowl 203. Bowl 203 is shown as a continuous surface but may comprise non-continuous surfaces (e.g., a surface adjacent to the rear of each slip assembly 205). Thus, as the slip assemblies 205 move up or down with respect to the bowl 203, the slip assemblies 205 may travel down along an inner surface of the bowl 203. With this movement, an inner surface (e.g., die) of the slip assemblies 205 will grip a tubular member 211 disposed within the gripping device 201. The slip assemblies 205 may have a gripping surface (e.g., teeth) on the inner surface to facilitate the gripping of the tubular member 211. After the tubular member 211 is supported by the gripping device 201, additional tubular members may be connected or disconnected from the tubular member 211.
As shown with respect to FIGS. 2A and 2B, the gripping device 201 may be used to grip tubular members 211 having multiple outer diameters. For example, as shown in FIG. 2A, the slip assemblies 205 may be positioned within the bowl 203 of the gripping device 201 to grip a tubular member 211A having a first diameter D1. As discussed, the slip assemblies 205 may be positioned using the ring 207 that may be vertically movable, e.g., through the actuator rods 209. FIG. 2B shows gripping device 201, in which the slip assemblies 205 are positioned vertically higher within the bowl 203 with respect to the positioning of the slip assemblies 205 shown in FIG. 2A. As such, this positioning of the slip assemblies 205 in FIG. 2B enables the gripping device 201 to grip another tubular member 211B, in which the tubular member 211B has a second outer diameter D2 larger than the first outer diameter D1 of the tubular member 211A (for example, where D1 and D2 are on a tubular body itself and not a connector portion thereof). Thus, gripping device 201 may grip tubular members 211 having a large range of outer diameters without the need of reconfiguration and/or adding supplemental equipment to the gripping device 201. For example, in one embodiment, the second outer diameter D2 may be at least 145 percent larger (or smaller) than the first outer diameter D1.
From time-to-time, the drillstring must be raised or “tripped” out of the hole, such as when changing the drill bit at the end of the string. As the drillstring is brought out of the hole, the various tubular members are removed from the string and set aside in or around the drilling rig. However, when doing this, the tubular members may have drilling fluids and/or debris deposited thereon, such as oil or water-based mud and cuttings from the drilled underground formations.
For example, when drilling downhole, the cuttings formed from the borehole with the drill bit at the bottom of the string may need to be removed from the wellbore, and the well head may need to be maintained at a predetermined hydrostatic pressure. Drilling mud is then pumped down through a bore of the drill pipe where the mud exits the drill bit, and is circulated back uphole in the annular space between the drill pipe and the borehole. As such, as the string of tubular members is brought up and removed from the wellbore, mud, whether oil-based or water-based mud, may cling to the outer surface of the tubular members.
One way to remove drilling mud from the tubular members is to have a drilling rig crew member wash down the tubular members with a hose or the like as the tubular members emerge from the borehole. However, this may lead to a loss of valuable drilling fluid that may otherwise be reused in the drilling process, or may further lead to having mud being cast off and onto the rig floor and/or in the areas of the pipe handling equipment, presenting both concerns related to the safety of the workers and concerns related to the proper maintenance of the equipment in the rig. In addition, water used to clean the tubular members may dilute the drilling fluid in the wellbore and affect the mud weight.
Another way to remove mud from the tubular members is to include a one-piece wiper with the pipe handling equipment, in which the wiper may be used to remove excess mud from tubular members passing through the pipe handling equipment. However, this may lead to the wiper wearing out more rapidly, as the wiper may be engaging and wiping the outer surface of the tubular members when passing the tubular members both downhole and uphole. Furthermore, these wipers may not be readily accessible or removable, and therefore may require a significant amount of downtime within the drilling rig to replace the wipers.
Further, generally a pipe string may be disposed and suspended within a borehole from a drilling rig using a pipe handling apparatus, such as a spider, in which the pipe string may be lengthened step-wise by threadably joining a tubular segment to the proximal end of the pipe string at the rig. The pipe string may be suspended within the drilling rig using a second type of pipe handling apparatus, such as an elevator, that is movably supported from a draw works and a derrick above the spider. As the load of the pipe string is transferred between the spider and the elevator, the spider may be unloaded and then disengaged from the pipe string by retraction of the slips within the spider. The lengthened pipe string may then be lowered further into the borehole using the draw works controlling the elevator. The spider may then again engage and support the pipe string within the borehole and an additional tubular segment may be joined to the new proximal end of the pipe string to further lengthen the pipe string.
Lengthening a pipe string generally involves adding one tubular segment at a time to an existing pipe string. Similarly, reducing the length of a pipe string generally involves a reverse process in which one tubular segment at a time is removed from the existing pipe string. Accordingly, each tubular member disposed downhole and returned back uphole from the well may pass through and be handled by one or more pipe handling apparatuses, such as the spider and/or the elevator. However, after handling a large number of tubular segments and supporting the weight of the pipe string, one or more components of the pipe handling apparatuses may require maintenance to ensure that the pipe handling apparatuses are working properly and will continue to work properly.
As such, to reduce the wear on a pipe handling apparatus, a pipe guide may be disposed adjacent to one or both of the openings of the pipe handling apparatus to ensure that the tubular members being received within the pipe handling apparatus are in proper alignment and position. While, the pipe guides themselves may be subject to wear, such as from hard-banding, misalignments, hang-ups while disposed tubular members downhole or pulling them back uphole, etc, it may be easier to inspect and replace a pipe guide, as compared to inspecting and replacing the entire pipe handling apparatus.
For example, a pipe guide may be disposed adjacent to the top opening and/or the bottom opening of a spider, in which the pipe guides may be replaced as needed. For the top pipe guide of the spider, a visual inspection of the pipe guide may be enough to determine if the top pipe guide needs replacing. However, it may be more complicated to determine if the bottom pipe guide requires replacing, as the bottom pipe guide may be disposed below the rig floor such that visual inspection may be difficult, or impossible for that matter. Accordingly, a need may exist to address one or more of these concerns.